


Warm Amber

by Aniyha



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, F/M, Fluff, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-14 16:02:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28798071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aniyha/pseuds/Aniyha
Summary: Aradia and Sollux enjoy a stick of warm amber incense.
Relationships: Sollux Captor/Aradia Megido
Comments: 5
Kudos: 9





	Warm Amber

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



The sound of a match striking the side of its container scratched through the air, followed by that of the air being displaced and consumed by a new, infant flame. Deft fingers guided the match to the tip of a lithe incense stick, which was itself settled in a decorative burner that also functioned as the lid of the container it came from. The flame took hold, but before it could start burning the stick, it was blown on until a proper wisp of scented smoke began to waft through the air. 

“The scents are, like, supposed to do something, right? What’s this one for?” Sollux asked from atop a maroon comforter, elbows indenting the material. He held his head in his hands, watching from the foot of the bed as the smoke rose to meet him from where it started on the floor. 

Aradia sat next to where the incense burned with her legs crossed. She was still holding the match she had used to light it. Its smoke rose alongside the incense’s trail until they both dissipated entirely into the upper air.

“Amber can be used for quite a few things,” Aradia started, looking up at Sollux through the thin line of grey. “Aiding in meditation, seeking out information on past lives, protecting or cleansing homes. There are about as many meanings as there are people.”

“Sounds kind of bullshit when you put it like that.”

“Not at all. It just means that your experience is unique!” 

She had a way of doing that, Sollux thought, of making everything in the world seem so kind, or purposeful, or beautiful. He rolled his eyes, but stopped halfway when his pupils realigned with the trail of smoke. It was a lazy, rolling thing, moving with the slightest invitation from Aradia’s breath.

“You don’t have to keep sitting on the floor, you know. This is your room,” Sollux told her, looking off to the side as he did. 

Aradia hummed, her brows furrowing as she looked at the orange-yellow tip of the incense stick. The match she held had stopped smoking. She set it down next to where the stick was held before standing up.

“Okay, make room.”

Sollux scooted to the side, which gave Aradia enough leeway to join him without either of them having to dangle their limbs off the edges of the mattress. They had to be slightly pressed together, but it was snowing outside, there was residual heat from where Sollux had previously been, and Aradia naturally ran warm regardless of the temperature. It would be a blessing in disguise that the two of them could accept.

“Are you starting to smell it?” Aradia asked, her gaze still fixed on the glow of the incense stick. From this distance, Sollux thought that he could estimate the diameter of the single dimple he could see from her smile. 

“Yeah. It’s kind of like honey, in a way. Like if you put the stick in the same room as some honey, but never let the two actually touch.” 

Aradia snorted. “I think that’s how they make LaCroix.” 

“Exactly,” Sollux grinned, an unpracticed gesture. He never showed teeth when he smiled, but Aradia almost always did. “Does anyone actually drink that stuff, or was it put on this Earth solely to have memes made about it?”

“I saw people buy it all the time when I worked that cashier job.”

“But did you ever see anyone drink it?” 

“Why would anyone buy a drink and not drink it?”

“Weird shit happens all the time. You of all people should know that.”

Aradia laughed at that. It was a hearty laugh that came from the stomach, one that Sollux could feel from how close he was to her. “I really don’t think that mediumship and drinking LaCroix are on the same level, but whatever you say!” 

Sollux’s own laugh was stifled and awkward when it came out, but he was sure that Aradia could find some positive spin for it, too. 

The two of them enjoyed a minute or two of silence after their laughter died down-- a comfortable alliance where all they had to do was watch the smoke rise from the shrinking stick. Sollux tried to imagine how much of the substance was becoming smoke, and how much was going to remain grounded as burnt byproduct. Aradia attempted to measure how much time was left based on the length remaining. 25 minutes, give or take?

“You know,” Aradia spoke softly, brushing aside the silence like a curtain, “I like it when you visit me. I know you don’t get the time to come over very often, but it’s nice to just… exist, in the same physical space together.” 

“Yeah,” Sollux quietly agreed. He started to feel a new warmth bloom across his face, but did his best to pay it no mind. “Wish we could do this more often.”

“Me too, but at least we get to have this much, right?”

Sollux shrugged. His expression was mildly discontented with his lips pressed thin and brows furrowed, but he couldn’t be too upset in the moment. 

Aradia looked back at him, allowing herself to lose track of how far along the stick was in its burning. “Can I guess what you’re thinking?”

Sollux’s expression rapidly became a passable neutral. “It’s hardly guessing if I’m so bad at hiding that kind of shit in the first place.”

“I would argue that that’s a virtue,” Aradia grinned. “You’re thinking that it’s an injustice, more in terms of myself than you. That we’re crushed by the routines of daily life so thoroughly that, sometimes, it doesn’t even feel worth it to pick up the most seemingly fleeting fragments of contentment.”

“I wouldn’t have worded it anything close to that, but sure, you got me.”

“All of our experiences are different. But I’m glad you made the choice to come anyway. I think… evolutionarily speaking,” she began to visibly remember something, her eyes darting off to the incense stick for a moment before whipping back to meet Sollux’s, “it’s easier to remember bad events than good ones. It came from our minds doing their best to keep us alive, and it was much more pertinent back hundreds of years ago to be aware of what myriad of things could kill you at any given time than it is now.”

“That makes sense,” Sollux conceded, but didn’t feel any better for it.

“So, what you are feeling is valid, and there are enough people who have gone through similar things that there’s a general idea of what can be done about it.” 

Sollux let out a long sigh at that point, which disrupted the wispy smoke trail of the incense enough to stir it in circles. There was enough of it burned at that point that he could walk around the room and smell amber regardless of where he stood, not that he would give up his current place. 

“It’s about finding these moments of contentment,” Aradia resumed, “and holding on to them for as long as you can. Take now, for instance. You don’t have to remember a single thing that actually happened here a few months down the line, but as long as you can think back to this moment and remember the contentment, you’ll be okay.”

It sounded so simple, coming from Aradia. Honey in his lungs and her words in his ears, Sollux could actually believe that, for a moment, all he needed was to find the occasional oasis in the desert. 

“Do you feel content right now?” Aradia asked.

Sollux hadn’t noticed it at first, but his eyes had been half-lidded ever since Aradia guessed what he was thinking. He usually felt more anxious than this, more jittery and aware, like his heartbeat was naturally elevated at all times. Regardless of if it was the comforter, the warmth amidst the season, or Aradia’s natural presence, he had to admit that it felt nice when his heart wasn’t trying to burst out of his chest.

“I’d say so,” he admitted. 

“Take that feeling with you, then.” She turned so that she was laying on her side, fully facing Sollux. Her smile was a gentle and easy one, nothing like the larger grins that she made whenever something got her truly excited, and seeing it then was enough to make Sollux want to see it again later.

He turned as well, seeking to face Aradia, but she moved closer and guided him to lay on his back, instead. He watched as she wrapped herself around him from the side, her welcoming softness against his sharp angles, but it had never felt wrong to him to be this close to her, despite how he thought of it. Aradia liked to think of cuddling as slotting together two pieces of the same puzzle.

She could feel his heartbeat, and he could feel hers. Sollux remembered something that he had heard a while back, of how people who walk near each other will naturally tend towards the same pace, regardless of if they know each other, or even their awareness of it happening. He thought that the same might be true for heartbeats, because nothing else could explain the way his pulse slowed further towards normalcy when introduced to Aradia’s. 

Neither of them knew how much of the incense stick was left unburned, but neither of them craned their necks over to check. The amber would linger in the air for a while longer once the heat reached the base of the stick, and so would only be noticeable once it had already gone out. It would go away like a dying star, beaming light to the world on a delay until, suddenly, it was gone. 

The specifics didn’t matter. Aradia had her head resting on Sollux’s chest, and Sollux, due to having lacked the foresight to steal a pillow while able to move freely, bunched up some of the excess comforter to prop his head up with. Neither of them wanted to move, if only to gently reposition into a more comfortable configuration. Sollux briefly felt awkward over the rise and fall of his chest, while Aradia, at some point, untangled her arms in order to ensure that all of her hair was over her shoulder, and thus not on Sollux’s face. 

“Are you tired?” Aradia asked, her words as quiet as the incense. 

“Not really,” Sollux responded, just as faintly. 

“Neither am I. What have you been thinking about?” 

“Dumb things.” 

“What kind of dumb things?”

“The kind of stuff you think about when your brain doesn’t know what else to do.” A pause. “The incense, it’s kind of like a star. We won’t be able to tell when it goes out just by the scent. It’s delayed. It could be out by now, but we wouldn’t know, because we can still smell it, or in a star’s case, its light is still heading to the Earth.”

“You could put that in a poem, I think.”

“Very funny.”

“Well, I thought it was pretty, at any rate.”

Neither of them spoke immediately after that. Now that it had been brought up, the idea of time passing had been reintroduced into the relaxed, aimless aura they had constructed for themselves. Just because they couldn’t see the burning of the incense stick didn’t mean that they had freed themselves from it.

“I think it’s a good thing,” Aradia spoke up. 

“What is?”

“That we wouldn’t know right away. I get to spend more time with you that way.”

Sollux said nothing, only letting a hand resting at her arm move gently up and down in a motion he hoped was comforting.

Aradia shifted ever so slightly, but rested in her adjusted position for several minutes after that, so he was probably doing something right.

More time passed by. Seconds, minutes, tens of minutes could have ticked away without them knowing an exact number.

Eventually, they stopped smelling the incense. They both knew it, but they had agreed without words to stay in place for a little longer, to pretend that they could still see the missing star. It would be their act of rebellion, Aradia thought. A gentle rebellion. The world could use a little more kindness.

Reality would have to ensue eventually, but she would stave it off for as long as possible.

“Hey,” she cut through the silence as softly as she could manage. “Let me light another one.”

Sollux sighed. “You only have so many, don’t you?”

“This is a special occasion.” 

The twin reminders of the scarcity of time and resources were enough to break through the aura, but Aradia could rebuild it. Sollux unwrapped himself from her, and she carefully removed herself from the bed to tend to the burner on the floor. She plucked the nub of incense left unburned from the center; let gravity take the ashes and spent match to the trash. Sollux listened as she unscrewed the burner, hearing the slightest sounds of the sticks against glass as she pulled out another one, then capped the container again. 

The sound of a match striking the side of its container scratched through the air, followed by that of the air being displaced and consumed by a new, infant flame.


End file.
